Meta adds new protections for teens, children across platforms: What's new

Meta is introducing expanded protections for teen and child accounts across its platforms, including new direct message safeguards and limits on interactions with suspicious adults

Meta has announced that it is adding new safety features for teen accounts across its social media platforms, along with new protections for adult-managed child accounts on Instagram. With this update, teens across Meta apps will have more context about who they’re messaging in DMs. Meanwhile, some teen account protections are being extended to adult-managed accounts.

Meta’s teen account protection and child safety features: What’s new

New safety features in DMs for teen accounts

Meta says it has rolled out new safety features in DMs for teen accounts to provide more context about the accounts they’re interacting with and help them identify potential scammers. With the update, teens will now see safety tips and have clearer options to block an account. They’ll also be able to view the month and year the account joined Instagram, which will be prominently displayed at the top of new chat windows. Additionally, a new block and report feature will let users take both actions at once.

These updates add to existing safety tools like the Location Notice, which alerts users when they might be chatting with someone based in a different country.

 

Earlier this year, Meta had extended teen account protections beyond Instagram to Facebook and Messenger as well.

New protections for adult-managed children accounts

Meta is also introducing safeguards for accounts run by adults that primarily feature children. This includes parents who regularly share photos and videos of their children, as well as adults — such as parents or talent managers — who manage accounts on behalf of teens or children under thirteen.

 

As part of the update, Meta says it will stop recommending these accounts to potentially suspicious adults, such as users who have previously been blocked by teens. It also aims to make it harder for such users to find these accounts through search and will begin hiding comments from suspicious adults on their posts.

Beyond this, Meta is extending several teen account protections to adult-managed child accounts. These include defaulting to the strictest message settings to prevent unwanted messages and turning on Hidden Words, which filters offensive comments. These updates will roll out in the coming months.